Cleaned out a bottle dump along the tracks today

It's A Trap!

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Western Pennsylvania, Gibsonia
Went back to a secret spot along some railroad tracks and waded through some thorny bushes to find these babies. Looks they're all from the 30s 40s and 50s based on the manufacturing date on some of the bottles



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The fork is a plain style fork from "Rogers" made from 1847 onwards. not sure what the bulb is for.

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Listerine bottle, battery oil bottle and a bluish cork top with some sort of wax or tar around the top

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33 bleach bottle and an art deco jar
 
The bulb looks like a standard auto tail light bulb.

Nice score on your finds! I've heard that electric insulators are collectable, so you shouldn't have any trouble selling those.
 
The bulb looks like a standard auto tail light bulb.

Nice score on your finds! I've heard that electric insulators are collectable, so you shouldn't have any trouble selling those.

Thanks!
Those were the only I could find on the ground. Fortunately the cables were not in use and were cut a while ago. I'll have to bring a ladder or one of those claw grabbers next time or maybe even give it a good shake :dash2:
 
Oh, BTW, uh, you were likely trespassing on RR property, which could get you into some hot water. Picking up junk off the ground is one thing, but actually removing insulators from poles is another. I advise against it, and I bet any lawyer would too. I am not a lawyer.
 
Oh, BTW, uh, you were likely trespassing on RR property, which could get you into some hot water. Picking up junk off the ground is one thing, but actually removing insulators from poles is another. I advise against it, and I bet any lawyer would too. I am not a lawyer.

Understood, the line has been abandoned for some time but I won't do anything that would get me in trouble
 
Is that a Thomas Edison battery oil? I've found a couple along the tracks when I was a teen. As far as the insulators go, I had a box of old ones (still have 'em) and couldn't get 50 cents a piece - they're just too common for any kind of value...although it only takes the right person to come along...
 
Is that a Thomas Edison battery oil? I've found a couple along the tracks when I was a teen. As far as the insulators go, I had a box of old ones (still have 'em) and couldn't get 50 cents a piece - they're just too common for any kind of value...although it only takes the right person to come along...

The bottle says "Waterbury Battery Oil" "The Waterbury Battery Co. Waterbury Conn. U.S.A" on the front with "4-40" on the bottom. I found 3 at the site but 2 of them cracked while cleaning
 
We used to find many of those battery oil bottles along the tracks, some were Edison, Union Carbide etc. Those were from workers replenishing switches and lights that used batteries.

Anymore you can get in trouble for being on active tracks but abandoned tracks IDK. The insulator collectors of the 70s would walk along tracks looking for rare colored/shaped insulators and they had many ingenious ways to take them from the crossties. I would say that these days all the "good" insulators have been "appropriated" and live in collections. It's getting very hard to even find insulator lines nowdays. The same goes for the little RR tie date nails.
 
Wtg --

Good digs - keep after them, especially along the old abandoned lines. Steve in so la
 
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I'm surprised at how many of those insulators are still around. After they were abandoned (or during) they seemed to be the preferred target for .22's.
 
I'm surprised at how many of those insulators are still around. After they were abandoned (or during) they seemed to be the preferred target for .22's.

There are still a lot of clear, green and blue colored insulators along the tracks here. Only problem is finding a stretch of tracks that aren't in use then finding a telephone pole that has fallen recently. Just like harvesting an apple tree all of the good fallen insulators have been snatched up from the ground, you gotta get a ladder or wait for the "tree" to fall to get the rest of the good ones

I got these insulators a couple days ago from a fallen telephone pole

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